With the hardcore passions, all-too-serious business dealings in the board room and the outpouring of emotions, it may be difficult to remember that there exists a lighter, funnier side to football. In the modern technological world, it’s an awful lot easier for rival fans to send jibes to one another and memes outlining Arsene Wenger’s stringent transfer policy are receiving as many hits as an analytical article that most likely took hours and hours to research and produce.
So what exactly do these banterous posts entail? What are some of the biggest clubs in the Premier League receiving taunts for?
If you want to get under an Arsenal fan’s skin just mention a big name they’ve missed out on because Wenger was too cheap.
Until the late additions of Shkodran Mustafi and Lucas Perez for a combined fee of £52 million, Arsenal’ s transfer dealings this summer had culminated in the additions of an extortionately priced midfielder, a Japanese forward without a work permit and a 20-year-old who formed a defence that conceded 80+ goals in England’s second tier last campaign.
As their rivals added world-class names like Pogba and Ibrahimovic to their ranks, the Gunners became a laughing stock in the transfer market; Arsene Wenger was especially catcalled by the Arsenal faithful. The internet exploded with memes depicting the Frenchman’s smug smirk coupled with fabricated quotes such as ‘ I don’t always buy players, but when I do, I sell another three players to balance the books’ to the rumoured addition of South Korean forward ‘Fu-kin-no-won’.
Then comes Arsenal’s insistence to be consistent. Having finished 4th in six of the last ten Premier League seasons, the Gunners and their fans are often teased at their love of a Champions League playoff and adoration for a mid-season collapse, just to ensure that fourth place is theirs. Such consistency would ordinarily be heralded but, instead, it’s become the subject of some fantastic heckling.
#2 Manchester City
Contrary to the popular joke, Manchester City do have long-time fans
The situation may be slightly different now that Pep Guardiola’s strolled into the dugout and the club have splashed out in excess of £150 million on players to appease the desires of City fanboys, but not too long ago the Citizens received regular taunts for their inability to fill the Etihad, even on a big match day.
It seems that the ongoing joke is all City fans are no more than teenage FIFA enthusiasts with limited football knowledge who ‘coincidentally’ started following the sport when Sheikh Mansour’s name started being plastered across the headlines. Naturally, there is a large proportion of the fans who have supported the club their entire life prior to the Mansour reign but the joke is brilliant.
Along with this comes the mocking towards the club’s lack of history in comparison to its Manchester rivals, the fact they go through managers like running water and, until last season’s surprising surge, their dire form on the European stage.
#3 Chelsea
This fan certainly remembers players from the pre-Mourinho era
Another big spender in recent years, who many argue owe their dominance in the last decade or so to Roman Abramovich’s wallet. Chelsea too are lambasted with hate for their treatment of managers; the recent appointment of Antonio Conte made the Italian the eleventh manager at the Bridge in the Abramovich era. The Chelsea board are often conveyed as being petulant, flippant and lacking concrete football knowledge.
Then there are the fans of the Blues. Across social media they are likened to male prostitutes or ‘rent boys’ and other supporters relish in suggesting Chelsea fans are obsessed with big name players and fail to recall any players pre-Mourinho. The Blues are arguably one of the most hated clubs in England and such dislike emanates from the supposed arrogance of their supporters.
Finally, there’s the treatment of their players. While, in reality, it’s only a handful of players who don’t flourish under the regime at Stamford Bridge, many criticise Chelsea for ‘ruining players’, buying them for big price tags only to diminish said player’s value over the years through restricting their game time or piling too much pressure onto them. Fernando Torres and Juan Mata were a pair particularly poorly dealt with in South London.
#4 Liverpool
Ahh Jordan Henderson as captain. What a time to be a Liverpool fan
Despite their success as one of the most decorated clubs in English football history, it has been 26 years since Liverpool last won the league title, meaning they’ve never lifted the prestigious Premier League. Call it ‘schadenfreude’ if you will, but one thing the cruel supporters of other big teams love is a big rival fallen on hard times and Liverpool’s barren spell in conjunction with Manchester United’s incredible success over the last twenty years or so draws a great deal of heckling from other fans.
A typical Liverpool fan is often thought to find every possible way to excuse a defeat and lets out a cry that ‘next year will be our year’. Stevie G, a club legend, didn’t help the situation when he slipped in a potential league decider two years ago against Chelsea. Compilations of various video edits and memes surfaced rapidly, somewhat scaring the Englishman’s glittering career.
And of course, the Scouse culture doesn’t do wonders for Liverpool’s reputation either. When insults about the club dry up, opposing supporters will often turn to outdated misconceptions of the people on Merseyside to rattle the Anfield cage, most of which are too politically incorrect to repeat on here.
#5 Tottenham Hotspur
Harry Kane’s heroics went in vain as Tottenham fans will have to wait another year at least to get one over Arsenal
“What do you think of Tottenham? Sh*t! What do you think of Sh*t? Tottenham!” - a classic chant crafted by Arsenal fans, Tottenham’s North London rivals. It is from this mutual hatred which the vast majority of Spurs disapproval arises. Since Arsene Wenger took charge of the Gunners, Tottenham have finished above every Premier League club except Arsenal; a statistic they’ll be desperate to amend this campaign.
Other jibes towards the Lilywhites include the implication that they are destined to forever be aired on Channel 5 for Europa League football (something put right this term) and the fact that their badge is the least fearsome looking of the five teams on this list; a cock balancing on a beach ball.
In the past, the club’s performances in games were often deemed drab and uninteresting and their inability to keep holds of big names like Gareth Bale and Luka Modric over the years, coupled with Daniel Levy’s dodgy dealings in the transfer market, has gradually rendered them another team strongly disliked across the country.
#6 Manchester United
And to think United fans were critcising their rivals for spending huge money on players
Last but not least is a club currently emerging from a time where they received arguably the greatest amount of mocking they have been, and will ever be, subjected to. Under David Moyes and Louis Van Gaal, the club were trapped in mediocrity, barely qualifying for the Europa and signing a handful of unknowns, only to make them more unknown; a stark contrast to the swashbuckling side which hoovered up trophies under Sir Alex Ferguson.
Not dissimilar to the Liverpool situation, fans of every club except United have loved witnessing the Red Devils’ fall from grace. The hatred blossomed by virtue of one key element - jealousy. The fact United have been so successful is precisely why so many teams’ fans make a mockery of individual players and label fans of the Manchester outfit as ‘glory hunters’.
In particular, it’s been United’s astronomical spending over the past few summers and the absence of success with it which has drawn the most laughs. Let’s hope for their sake that Pogba and co. can do a shift this campaign.
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